The Year of the GOAT; 40,000 Miles in Pursuit of Peace, Pastures, and the Perfect Cheese by Margaret Hathaway & Karl Schatz

Author:Margaret Hathaway & Karl Schatz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc
Published: 2022-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

11

Junction, San Angelo, and Sonora, Texas

WE TRAVEL THROUGH THE GENTLE HILLS NEAR AUSTIN TO THE EXPANSIVE grasslands of the southwest and farther to the stilled buckles and waves of borderland desert, crowned by the rusty crags of the Christmas Mountains. As we venture south, the numbers of goats increase dramatically. From the road, we see herds of them racing through the brush, sometimes being rounded up by flanneled men on horseback, sometimes simply running, as though excited or spooked by the wind.

Many are Angora goats, evidence of the mohair industry that, until its government subsidy was eliminated in 1994, had been prominent in the region. (until the mid-nineties, the production of mohair had been considered of vital importance to national security, as for decades the fiber was widely used by the U.S. military. A large government subsidy made it an attractive business prospect; rumor in the goat world has it that before the subsidy’s abolition, the largest goat herd in America was owned as a side business by the Dow Chemical Company.)

A large number of the goats we see from the road are part Boer, their genetics evidenced by the distinctive red-and-white coloring and stocky body shape of the breed. This is the part of the Texas goat industry that we’ve been anticipating: animals bred for meat in a state with a huge appetite for it. Our itinerary includes stops at several of the state’s larger auction houses, and at two barbecue joints, both named Cooper’s, where cabrito—goat meat barbecued on the bone in the Mexican style—is the specialty of the house.

Though I’m originally from nearby Kansas, I haven’t spent much time in Texas, and Karl and I are both a little nervous as we go deeper into the state. It’s so vast that it feels like we’re in a different country. We have no idea what to expect, but our initial impression is one of incongruity. It is a state once governed by the current president, but it also elected Ann Richards. It’s predominantly evangelical Christian, but it also embraces Kinky Friedman and Molly Ivins. We’ve been told that Texas is a “love it or hate it” kind of place, that our feelings about it will be sudden and strong. “What if we hate it?” I ask Karl. We’re planning to spend three weeks here, but if that’s the case, neither of us knows what we’ll do.

Our first stop after Dripping Springs is Junction. The town of Junction, about two hours west of Austin, is small (population 2,618), rural, and ringed by scrubby bluffs of crumbly yellow dirt. Every Monday, it holds one of the largest goat and sheep auctions in the state. Approaching the auction house, we have little idea of its scale, but on the morning we visit about fifteen hundred animals will pass through its ring. Out back, we see acres of pens webbed by catwalks, containing thousands of animals; pulling his trailer behind a battered pickup truck, a man in chaps and a broad Stetson steps down.

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